Never Knew Her
by fairwinds09
Summary: Gibbs realizes how little he really knew the woman he loves.


Title: "Never Knew Her"

Rating: K+

Spoilers: All of Seasons 1 & 2, but mostly Twilight.

A/N: All right, I know this story is not your usual KIBBS happy ending. Or tragic ending, for that matter. It's kind of in a little world all of its own. And for those of you who really love Gibbs and Kate ending up happily together, please don't shoot me. I just sort of had this idea one day at work and ran with it.

I based the story on an old country song by Don Williams called "She Never Knew Me." It's a sad song, a little bitter, and seemed to fit the mood I was looking for to perfection. The only things I had to change in the story were the pronouns.

So…hope you enjoy, and let me know what you think. Thanks for reading. :)

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"_She knows I love her_

_I know I need her_

_God knows to please her_

_I've tried…and I've tried._

_By now, if I know her,_

_She's changed her mind_

_She'll pull off the highway_

_And have a good cry._

_She'll stop at some café_

_And give me a call_

_But she never knew me_

_She never knew me_

_She never knew me at all."_

He knew it was going to come to this.

He told her, back when their relationship had just started. He had warned her that he wasn't the romantic type, that he'd forget her birthday and their anniversary, that he wasn't big on the whole hearts-and-flowers thing. He reminded her that they were a mismatch in every way, an old, embittered former Marine and a beautiful, bright young agent with everything to look forward to. But she hadn't listened, and he'd known even then that it would end this way.

He just hadn't realized that it was going to hurt this much.

Alone in the bright overhead light of the kitchen, he stares down at the note sitting on his empty tabletop. It's just a single square of heavy white paper (he should have known that Kate would choose to write her farewell letter to him on quality stationery), folded in half and addressed simply in black ink to "Gibbs." He finds it ironic that throughout the two years they were together, she was never quite comfortable with calling him Jethro. Some things never change, he tells himself bitterly.

And then some things do. At the beginning, it had been chemistry, hot and bright and blinding, destroying their mutual inhibitions in a single firestorm of sensation. When he met her for the first time on Air Force One, it had been there. Over the two years they worked together, it had merely heightened. Halfway through her second year at NCIS they had finally succumbed to it, and for a few indescribable months, it had been a wild and crazy ride on the edges of desperation.

Everything changed after that day on the rooftop. When that bullet whipped past her face, only millimeters from impact, he had realized for the first time just what she meant to him and how afraid he was of losing her. That night, as he rubbed liniment into the bruises from the round she took in the vest, he could barely stop himself from grabbing her up and never letting go until she promised to join some nice safe profession like teaching kindergarten or selling insurance. He knew, though, deep in his gut, that she'd never listen to him, never agree to give up the job she loved. And in all fairness, he could hardly ask her to do what he wasn't willing to try himself.

But for nearly a year after that, even after Ari was dead and he knew she was safe, he was consumed by a silent panic for her—even as she transferred to another team and he saw her less and less during the action-filled days. At home, in the evenings, he was gentler, more tender, filled with a strange desire to coddle and comfort her. She was puzzled at first, and then amused, and finally she simply seemed to accept that he was different, at least where she was concerned. The hard-nosed boss she'd known, the reclusive man she'd tumbled into love with, was replaced by a tentative, almost humble lover that she'd gradually fallen for even harder than before. He'd never been like that with any of his three ex-wives—which was probably why they turned out to be exes. In fact, he hadn't been that open, that loving, since Shannon and Kelly. Occasionally that realization scared him half to death. But most of the time, he simply accepted that Kate was finally breaching the barriers that had calcified around his heart.

And so for nearly two more years they worked in the same building, ran into each other occasionally in the parking lot, spent their Saturdays in coffee shops and at the pier, and rode out the even plateau of a more settled love. He had thought that they'd reached a resting point, a place where both of them could sit back and simply enjoy each other. Every once in a while thoughts of marriage and family crossed his mind, but he beat them relentlessly back—unwilling to venture into that territory so soon, telling himself that it wasn't too late, that they still had time. Nevertheless, he had known in his gut these last six months or so that something wasn't right. He just hadn't had the courage to pinpoint what it was.

Now he looks down at the note that brought his life down around his ears, reaches out toward it like it's a snake that's poised to strike. After a second's deliberation, he sits down before he opens it, deciding that maybe he'd better not be on his feet when he reads it again. The black words on the white paper float before his eyes, ripping at his gut again, almost more painfully than the first time when he was still numb from shock and disbelief. Kate's handwriting, the curves and angles elegant and precise, stares up at him like a half-forgotten face…just enough of a reminder to hurt, hardly enough of a presence to assuage the pain. Mechanically he traces the edge of the paper with the pad of his thumb, not even noticing the sharp edges digging into his skin. He is beyond feeling now.

He forces himself to read it again, from the first straightforward sentence to the heartbroken goodbye. She told him that she never wanted to do this, but she didn't think she had much of a choice anymore. She told him that she loved him, that she would never forget him, but that she couldn't spend the rest of her life waiting on a man who was so afraid of taking the next step. She said she'd always dreamed of a family, of a home and kids of her own, and she couldn't stop wanting that no matter how much she loved him. She said that she knew he didn't want to start a family again, that whatever had happened in his past had finished that possibility forever. She said she understood and she didn't want to pressure him into doing something he didn't want to do, and so she had decided to simply solve the whole problem by letting him go.

At the end, she tells him she's requested a transfer to the Los Angeles office. She's going to move across the country and start over, she says, and she hopes that she can forget him enough to be able to love someone again. She's afraid she'll never be completely free, though, and she knows he probably won't be either. But she tells him, with her heart in the words, that she wants him to fall in love again, hold someone close again, trust someone with the same tenderness and warmth he showed to her. He's one of the best men she's ever known, she tells him, and she knows that someday he's going to meet a woman who can take him just as he is, no strings attached. She just wishes that woman could have been her. And then she tells him goodbye, that she loves him, and that she'll always think of him.

And then there's just the simple signature, the one he's seen on a thousand reports and files and little to-do notes: "Kate."

He drops the note back onto the bare tabletop, lets his head fall between his hands and tries not to think about the terrible swelling pain that's currently invading his chest. He's been rejected before—hell, he was beginning to think that he had "Dear John" written somewhere on his driver's license. But not like this—never like this. With his ex-wives, he saw the writing on the wall months, even years before the actual blow fell. With Kate, he knew something was wrong but he never imagined this happening, never saw the catastrophe approaching him with the deadliness of a speeding train. Now he had no idea what to do, what to say, what to think. Even his beloved boat and trusty bottle of Jack can't do anything for him now.

But as he sits there, raises his head and looks around the empty kitchen, he thinks to himself that he should have known. He should have listened harder, looked deeper, thought more carefully before he got either of them involved in this. He knew that she was nearly twenty years younger, that she wanted marriage and kids, that she wanted a home and a family to settle down with someday soon. He knew that neither of them were getting any younger, that time was running out for them, that even if they started now he'd be an old man before their children were even close to grown. But he hadn't thought about it, hadn't wanted to…hadn't been able to imagine being happily married again, looking into the face of a child who bore his name. And because he kept pushing away the insistent presence of reality, he has lost the last woman he loved.

And she will be the last. He can't take this anymore, can't go through the heartbreak and the disappointment and the pain. He's too old, too jaded, too experienced to hold up under the strain anymore. Oh, he'll go on casual dates, sleep with a few women, try to enjoy the waning years of his life with brief rounds of meaningless sex and empty conversations. But none of them will touch his heart again, reach down to the depths of the complex and difficult man that he is. Kate was the last, and now that she is gone his hope for loving someone, staying with someone for all the years ahead, is gone.

He gets up, ignoring the sharp pain stabbing through his creaking joints, and walks slowly through the kitchen and the darkened living room and down the basement stairs. He can't work on his boat and he doesn't want a drink. He just wants to sit there for a while, in the room where they shared so many late-night conversations, so much laughter, so much easy company. Sit there, and remember.

And as he lowers himself to the floor, props his back against the rough wooden ribs of his boat, pulls the stiff paper out of his pocket and runs his fingers over it yet again, he wonders how it couldn't be enough. How love and need and the overwhelming desire to please each other couldn't overcome all the obstacles. How he's sitting, alone again, empty again, with a half-built boat and bourbon-laced nights ahead of him. How she could have gutted him with a single sheet of handwritten cardstock. How he could have loved a woman so deeply for nearly four years and never have realized the dreams she held closest to her heart. How he failed to realize that he could never truly be what she needed.

How he never knew her, never really knew her, at all.


End file.
